Trying to work out if I'm going to be able to fit in a ski trip this year - budget is painfully low though.
Euro exchange rates mean that lift passes are going to be the biggest expense on the trip so...
Does anyone have any suggestions of smallish/medium sized resorts with a few black pistes? La Clusaz looks interesting... Anything else, maybe a little higher?
Various thoughts:
Looks like Feb/March rather than January due to OH being highly unlikely to have holiday in December/January.
Driving/self catering looks eminently doable as we would hopefully manage to fill a car with 4 people insured to drive it. OH and I did Les 2 Alpes - Exeter in 1 (horrendously long) day due to making unexpectedly good progress on the French side and no hotels close to Calais (had expected to take longer to get back).
Must be within EU as I expect to have exclusions on my travel insurance.
France has the advantage that I speak the language and is relatively close.
Dover/Calais would probably be the best crossing as I can get cheap tickets through parents.
Thanks in advance
R
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Feb is jam packed with french hols from 9th ish i think through til 9th ish March so best avoided. Week before or week after, unlikely(all the usual caveats) to be a snow issue so height less of a worry?
les Contamines?
Le Grand Bornand? - can't remember the black situation but lift pass was very cheap and could bolt La Clusaz on.
Combloux? (low though) Again options to branch out to the whole of Mont Evasion if you feel like it.
Sure others have much better ideas.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Randomsabreur, you could have a look at Les Saisies. Snow should be fine then - see for example
very high spec 2 bedroom apartment 450 euros for the week beginning 6 March. In the same complex as ours - which will be full of us! I have no commercial interest but can vouch for the quality of the apartments and the area. 185km linked pistes, of which quite a few black, and some accessible off piste. Ski passes are not super cheap though.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Randomsabreur,
You are right to look at the less well known resorts. If you take a car then that really opens up where you can stay..but that assumes you don't mind using the car almost every day. If you don't want to do that..and 4 peeps and skis and boots needs a wintered car, IMV, then you'll need to be able to get about on foot or bus.
The Chf was good at 1.67 last week so that brings Switzerland into the equation....if your insurance will go there. You'll need to check as for most intents or purposes Switzerland can be in the EU for a lot of things.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Quote:
You are right to look at the less well known resorts. If you take a car then that really opens up where you can stay..but that assumes you don't mind using the car almost every day.
well, not necessarily. There are plenty of less well known resorts where you can find a cheap apartment right on the piste - like the one I suggested. You could leave a car in the garage all week and either ski out the door or use the ski bus.
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Car would almost certainly be a CR-V, which could possibly get some wintery tyres if the weather here is anything like last year - one of OH's colleagues skied to a call and got a tractor drag lift back up! CR-V coped well in our snow, better than a disco which severed a brake line with a snapped snow chain!
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Quote:
a disco which severed a brake line with a snapped snow chain!
ouch!
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Randomsabreur, I've sent you a PM
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Check out Montgenevre. There is cheaper, but its in a middle sized category resort in France. Cheaper lift pass than the huge French area. In the local area pass there is 100km of slopes and a day in the linked Via Lattea (Milky Way with 400km skiing in Italy) and 250km in Serre Chevalier.
I would personally go with March, relatively snowsure in this month and beats the crowds of February.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
The worst thing was that the disco's owner had to wait ages before it could be recovered to be repaired - he had the snow chains due to living up a lane on the edge of Dartmoor where there were about 2 feet of snow. Lane is entertaining at the best of times and snow hung around for about 5 days!
Just need to convince OH that there are places worth skiing which aren't mega resorts - he's being really snobby about it. It's not like we need English to be spoken - lessons are unlikely to be within budget and I'd be the most likely to need and I've always been in the "French" groups for ski lessons up to now...
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I'm not quite sure what your budget is, but I'm finding it comparable to fly west rather than drive to an EU resort - and I live IN mainland Europe! Once I've bought winter tyres and paid various taxes and tolls (France/Switzerland) - I can jump on a plane to US/Canada and IMO it's cheaper there.
Just need to convince OH that there are places worth skiing which aren't mega resorts
You definitely do! We like skiing mega resorts as much as the next man/person but there are loads of small, lesser known places that are fantastic and well worth a visit. It's great to get off the beaten track for some excellent, cheap skiing.
How about a €24 lift pass (per day) last season at Combloux (France) versus almost twice the price in the 3 Valleys? It's a gem of a ski area - and was deserted on a fine weekend in March. Other crackers we've discovered in France include Arreches, St. Francois Longchamp and Valfrejus. Switzerland discoveries include Lenzerheide, St. Luc, Chandolin, Vercorin, Arosa and Grimentz; in Germany Garmisch, Oberaudorf and Reit im Winkl were great; Austria - Serfaus, Fiss, Golm, Schruns, Schladming, Zauchensee, Flachau to name but a few; in Italy Pila; in Scotland - Glencoe; and in England Weardale and Yad Moss....
Go for it! there is more to (skiing) life than mega resorts - honest!
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Car has the advantage for us that it is a company car, so the only costs are fuel, tolls and crossing. Filled with 4 adults, it is cheaper than any flight could be, especially as early booking is not an option. If self catering, I also prefer to have a car so that we can stock up on necessities on the way to the resort rather than relying on resort supermarkets. If the weather is anything like last year, winter tyres might even already be on the car by March provided by work!
Response from darling OH re smaller resorts "I'd get bored" "They have a bad reputation" and "not enough descent" etc. I don't understand why he's thinking that - he's a competent 6-8 week skier - likes blacks and done the odd off piste lesson. I'd be doing my 3rd week, like wide reds, steeper blues and easier blacks. Would rather do a wide black than a narrow really flat green near an edge and would probably look more competent (fear of edges and heights = work in progress). Fear of edges was sufficiently irrational last year that I found it hard to ski near an edge which led to a slope of a steepness I could and had skied down, although I have been to go ape and hill walking since in an effort to improve the situation. The people we're most likely to go with are somewhere in between.
Given that we'd in all probablility ski together most of the time I can't see OH getting bored in a resort with plenty of reds, 10+ blacks and some steepish blues. There'd be a few blacks he'd be sent off on his own to play on (narrow/moguls) and probably mogulled reds would be mostly avoided by me - my current mogul technique involves me collecting quite a lot of snow in my clothes... I need to be better at doing short radius turns exactly when I want to to really cope with moguls!
We didn't get close to doing all the pistes in La Rosiere 2 years ago, and I quite like going back to nice pistes and doing laps improving technique even not in a lesson. I don't count a piste "done" unless I've made it down without collecting snow up my jacket... Also we hardly made a dent in Tignes/Val last year, not even blues/reds. The problem is explaining this to OH. The only issue was La Ros was that all the pistes were bashed every night so no moguls for OH to play with.
Does that make any sense? Sales pitch for Les Saisies etc needed, including possible maximum descents, length of queues, speed of lifts, cost of lift pass and interest of skiing.
Ta
R
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Quote:
Response from darling OH re smaller resorts "I'd get bored" "They have a bad reputation" and "not enough descent" etc. I don't understand why he's thinking that - he's a competent 6-8 week skier - likes blacks and done the odd off piste lesson.
Hmm, sounds like a classic case of someone thinking he's better than he actually is - I should know, I've been there. On our last trip to Utah, I spent an entire day on just two lifts. It's not about the piste, it's not about the miles, it's about the company and the terrain
How about an area with about a third cheaper costs all round - lift pass, food and hire with world class offpiste http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Pyrenees/Pic-Du-Midi higher than the top lifts of the portes de soliel, more snow on average than the Alpes due to its more maritime climate, over 110kms of pistes http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Pyrenees/Bareges, home to the current snowboard world champion Mathieu Crepel, The Sunday times quoted Bareges as ' Frances best kept secret'.... Easy access from autoroute, Tarbes/lourdes airport (40mins) or Pau with ryan air (1.5hrs) or train down from Paris (night train gives an extra day skiing). There is a nice little chalet in the village too (les cailloux).
Freindly place on top of that with totally unbiased snowheads living there
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
nbt wrote:
Quote:
Response from darling OH re smaller resorts "I'd get bored" "They have a bad reputation" and "not enough descent" etc. I don't understand why he's thinking that - he's a competent 6-8 week skier - likes blacks and done the odd off piste lesson.
Hmm, sounds like a classic case of someone thinking he's better than he actually is - I should know, I've been there. On our last trip to Utah, I spent an entire day on just two lifts. It's not about the piste, it's not about the miles, it's about the company and the terrain
I think it's a combination of thinking he's better than he is, being a gung ho, go for it type rather than a perfectionist - happy to "get down" somehow rather than wanting it to feel great all the way - he looks competent and workmanlike rather than elegant most of the time - and also knowing he's not good enough to do proper full on off piste and also doesn't have anyone to ski with off piste, other than by luck in meeting someone in resort. So I guess he's a bit stuck in the middle and we don't have enough cash to pay for lots of off piste lessons. Also doesn't help that the one off piste lesson he had last year wasn't great as the instructor was more of a "follow me down this steep slope" type and didn't really instruct. The instructor pitched the lesson to the person in front who'd skied twice as much as the other 3, and the "weaker" 2 had limited off piste experience, but were competent enough to look better than they were on the piste used as an assessment.
Unfortunately, telling him to stop being an arrogant so and so about his skiing ability, tempting though it is, won't sell my choice of resort... Maybe I should sell it as an intermediate phase - getting me up to a standard where I can keep him company on difficult stuff without having a nervous breakdown about edges and moguls. Some of me has a selfish wish to ski with my OH this year as I think that lessons would probably be a waste of time for me. My technique is better than my confidence, and my OH would be better at giving me confidence than an instructor who doesn't really know me. Top end ESF class 2 last year was largely within my technique (sorting hat on day 1 put me in that group) but my confidence couldn't cope with the "interesting" moments and the issues I have with edges - I was probably one of the best in the class at steep wide stuff, but easily the worst where there was an edge within sight!
Randomsabreur, I hope I'm not teaching granny to suck eggs but I'm sure you could overcome your nervousness of 'edges' / 'drop-offs' at the side of linking lanes with one trip to a snowdome. I'm guessing you already know how to 'feather' your skis with the 'falling leaf' action that instructors use to show you the feel for your ski edges. It's a really simple extension to exactly that kind of control which allows you to point forward and rotate through any angle sideways, left or right in an instant. Learning to link those rotations together over and over again will allow you to control your speed without making a single turn nor need to snowplough on almost any traverse or narrow lane and all that with a feeling of total and utter control.
Go to a snowdome, pick an imaginary 6 foot wide path straight down the snow and practice a few sets of linked left switches and linked right switches from top to bottom. You'll be surprised how fast you pick up a technique that allows you to descend that imaginary 6 foot wide path using much less than 6 foot width. Linking say 15-30 degree switched rotations means that your pathway on the snow will be less than 2-3 feet wide even with a 170 cm ski. You'll soon develop a technique to manage the narrowest, busiest, bumpiest and most icy of traverses with utter confidence. Your mogul skiing skills will take a quantum leap too.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Randomsabreur, I hope I'm not teaching granny to suck eggs but I'm sure you could overcome your nervousness of 'edges' / 'drop-offs' at the side of linking lanes with one trip to a snowdome. I'm guessing you already know how to 'feather' your skis with the 'falling leaf' action that instructors use to show you the feel for your ski edges. It's a really simple extension to exactly that kind of control which allows you to point forward and rotate through any angle sideways, left or right in an instant. Learning to link those rotations together over and over again will allow you to control your speed without making a single turn nor need to snowplough on almost any traverse or narrow lane and all that with a feeling of total and utter control.
moffatross : I am very interested in your comments. I'm not too nervous about being near an edge but I'd certainly like to have more control in steep narrow sections where my 'technique' nearly always fails me and I tend to end up crabbing sideways. Could you expand on the 'feather' and 'falling leaf' action which I have never heard of before?
Many thanks
After all it is free
After all it is free
moffatross : I am very interested in your comments. I'm not too nervous about being near an edge but I'd certainly like to have more control in steep narrow sections where my 'technique' nearly always fails me and I tend to end up crabbing sideways. Could you expand on the 'feather' and 'falling leaf' action which I have never heard of before?
loatie, think of this as exactly the same 'action' that initiates the move that allows a skier to merrily go from skiing backwards to forwards (and v/v) and to rotate back in either direction in an instant. Between 1.00 and 1.30 or so, my youngest is doing precisely this on the slopes of Cairngorm ... http://youtube.com/v/sn8Spg2h8v8
This unweighting, rotation, reweighting becomes so natural to you that you don't even think about it but I'll try to explain what I remember my feet doing to my skis when on snow. Initiating a move from facing skis towards the fall-line to skis facing sideways or backwards to the fall-line, the heel and toe will be used to move bodyweight from the fore-ski to the rear followed by a precise rotation in desired direction using the same muscles of the foot. As the chosen degree of rotation completes, you are already rebalancing your bodyweight for the new direction and setting your edges for sideways-sliding, braking, snow-spraying, whooping, posing or whatever floats your boat in that new direction. This is a wonderful action for pisted, sun-compacted or flat icy snow (not so great in deep powder ) and is the same one you can use if you want to bimble down bumps in a really relaxed, lazy manner, rotating just on the downhill end of the bump crest.
Remember the OP had a nervousness about the drop-offs to the edge of linking lanes but in answer to your question about steep, narrow sections, it depends what you mean by steep. I wouldn't say it's a great technique for 35 degree plus snow slopes when you will always want your body to be facing forwards but shallower slopes than that can be a great technique for speed control using very little space left and right.
I hope I've explained some of what I'm thinking but I'm not a great explainer.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Ifyouski have a few videos on steep skiing techniques, and I think edeging or side slipping are very much the same as feathering, the guy in this video explains it better than I can
http://www.ifyouski.com/technique/steeps3/
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
This is probably an even better clip for your stated problem. That's it for today now, I'm going to be watching ski technique videos all day!!!
Thanks - have got some vouchers to be used before December anyway!
Haven't done any exercises like that before. But my problem with edges isn't really technical and narrow doesn't have to be really narrow. Put cones down the middle of a wide piste, and tell me to stay within - no problem. Make one of those sides an edge and the other a wall, and I start hugging the wall and using less than half of the available space, then I get so close to the wall that I stick my tips into it. I'm trying to work on general confidence with heights, but it is definitely work in progress. The problem with lessons is that they don't do the sorting hat stuff on the things that bother me. I'm competent enough to flatter my technique on the steepish wide blues that they usually like for that. The lower classes don't go on the things I do like such as steeper groomed reds, and wouldn't spend time on the narrowish stuff which I need to get over. Of course if it's actually snowed recently and there's fresh snow around, they could sort me into the "never skied" group as I've hardly come across anything more than a dusting on a good base, and even that was "different" and made be fall frequently.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Randomsabreur, control freaks make for good and safe skiers and fear of going over the precipice to the left or right of a linking lane is perfectly healthy and one that everyone save the unbreakable should have. I remember being terrified that my own children would slip over the edge in a howling gale and white-out conditions on a high mountain pass link lane at Serre Chevalier last Christmas. In fact, their technique meant they were totally in control, much more so than the overconfident turners and nervous snowploughers who treat a lane in the same way as any other piste. Theoretically at least then, your new-found total control of your movements in narrow snow lanes might help you not by overcoming the fear of the precipice itself but by the knowledge that you can slide as close to it as you like with no fear of going over it if you get my meaning.
Incidentally, falling on steeps doesn't always hurt either especially where the run-out is soft and gentle. Two years ago I managed a spectacular 150 meter cartwheeling fall by failing to initiate the first turn after sliding off a cornice onto a 45 degree slope. Luckily it didn't hurt anything other than my pride but as a fellow control freak I have since honed my technique.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
One I could suggest if you were to fly and swissair seem to do reasonable prices is laax. About 90 mins drive from zurich. 200km of slopes and lots of good skiing with some accessible easy off piste. Downside is you would prob need to fly and hire a car. resort is cheap by french ski resort standards. you could drive all the way but I wouldn't fancy it with it best to the west of switzerland
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
moffatross - I also have problems with edges leading to something I "could" ski down. Towards the end of last year's holiday we were going down the lovely "green" down to Val d'Isere and I was having major issues approaching the edge. Later on that day we found an "edge" leading to something of blue/red steepness full of tracks where people had been entertaining themselves. I could go up to it, look over it and even deliberately ski over it. Going down that piste later I still had issues with approaching the edge, even though I had deliberately been over it and coped fine earlier that day. It's severly irrational an annoys me because of it. Simple solution would be private lessons doing lots of narrow tracks on wide pistes, moving to narrow tracks on narrow pistes. However, I think my OH could do as well as an instructor at telling me when to do narrow tracks on a nice wide piste and would be better at the kick up the bum/shoulder to cry on when something narrow is necessary!
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Randomsabreur, One suggestion would be to go back to Les Deux Alpes which fits many of your resort criteria. Try getting lessons from easiski she is a based in L2A and has a deservedly very good reputation as an instructor. Many nervous skiers here will attest to her ability to give them extra confidence.
You say
Quote:
My technique is better than my confidence, and my OH would be better at giving me confidence than an instructor who doesn't really know me.
This is the type of situation that many people say easiski has helped them in. I canot attest to this myself as technique is more my problem than confidence however I can say she is an excellent instructor when she ws with me and my family.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
) and is the same one you can use if you want to bimble down bumps in a really relaxed, lazy manner, rotating just on the downhill end of the bump crest.
based in L2A and has a deservedly very good reputation as an instructor. Many nervous skiers here will attest to her ability to give them extra confidence.
